


a few miles out from happily ever after

by AppleJuiz



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Reunion, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 18:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18372062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppleJuiz/pseuds/AppleJuiz
Summary: And when Quentin pulls away, running the sleeve of his cardigan over his entire face and grimacing in the self deprecating way he does, Eliot very calmly thinks to himselfWhy the fuck not?***In which there are three love confessions and Eliot gets brave.





	a few miles out from happily ever after

**Author's Note:**

> I am very scared for the next two episodes so I decided to live in denial and write this cute piece with a bunch of reunions. Enjoy!!

He sees Margo first and it’s everything. She is everything. 

 

She crashes into him and he wraps himself around her. For a moment he can only wonder if she was always this small. She hugs him so tight it hurts and he can barely breathe, but it’s Margo, finally. He can’t bring himself to care. 

 

It’s staring out over her head, barely breathing, that he sees Quentin.

 

He looks rough. And tired. Part of Eliot thinks it would be irresponsible to have an emotional reunion and/or love confession right now because he needs to get Q into a bed but in a very literal unsexy way.

 

Quentin tries to smile, but his mouth is a wavering line of stress and his eyes are watery. He’s a disaster and Eliot loves him so much. 

 

He steps around Margo, let’s go of her hand with great reluctance. He’s searching desperately for words because even with time to prepare he doesn’t know how to start. 

 

Quentin closes the distance anyway, timidly, full of uncertainty and Eliot can’t imagine what’s going through his head. 

 

They come together in a tight desperate hug, and Eliot clings to him, drinks him in, wants to pull him directly into his chest so he’ll never be alone again, they’ll never be apart again. 

 

Quentin buries his face in his neck and his back is shaking beneath Eliot’s hands but he doesn’t say anything just holds him through it. 

 

And when Quentin pulls away, running the sleeve of his cardigan over his entire face and grimacing in the self deprecating way he does, Eliot very calmly thinks to himself  _ Why the fuck not? _

 

“Q,” he says and smiles and leans in. 

 

It’s a strange kiss, soft and sweet and brief, reminiscent of their twilight years in Fillory where passion still came but less often than the outpouring of fondness. 

 

Quentin doesn’t move his hands from his sides, but he leans in and Eliot can feel his eyelashes brush against his skin. 

 

He rocks back on his heels, pulling away ever so slowly. For a second Quentin’s mouth chases his, his eyes still closed, his nose scrunched up. Eliot’s heart skips one beat, then another, jerking along but just barely.

 

Quentin seems to catch himself and leans back, eyes opening, only a little too wide. 

 

“Uh, I… we should, um…”

 

There’s so much he should say, so many things Quentin needs to hear. But it all gets caught in his throat at the look in Quentin’s eyes. 

 

And then something crashes and something else blows up and there’s no more time for a reunion, just time to be briefly caught up on the latest and greatest of their ragtag groups horrible decisions. 

 

They’re not in Fillory anymore. Time is the one thing they don’t have. 

  
  
  


 

There’s an apartment and it was Marina’s but now it’s Kady’s. 

 

Someone guides him to a room and hands him a change of clothes but he can’t remember who because everything is so much.

 

He’s no longer wearing a graphic tee and that’s enough for now.

 

They have plans to head back to Fillory in the morning even though they’re not sure how exactly that works now that none of them are on the throne. But there’s a book or maybe a magical creature or a plant perhaps that they need in order to do… something. He hasn’t been paying attention. He’s been a little busy staring at Margo and Quentin and reveling.

 

But that means that he’s in a slightly too small sweater and an empty bedroom and he has no idea what he’s supposed to be doing. 

 

He thinks he should find Quentin, but he’s not even sure where he disappeared off to or where he would start to look. 

 

“Hey.” There’s a an abrupt knock on the door. “C’mon. Open up.”

 

He’s already at the door, casting it open and leaning on the door frame. 

 

“Bambi,” he says, beaming. She pushes past him into the room, a hand on his chest. 

 

“C’mon, time for a talk,” she says, kicking the door closed behind her. 

 

He trails along after her because it’s the easiest thing in the world. 

 

“What’s up?” He asks, grabbing her hand. She stops and turns to face him. 

 

“Okay,” she says, staring up at him with those big brown eyes. “When you were- Nope I can’t do this. Turn around.”

 

“Hmm?” Her hands land on his shoulders and push, twisting his torso around. “Alright.” He shuffles around, nearly tripping over his feet as he faces the door. A laugh bubbles out from his chest and it feels so good. 

 

“Better,” Margo says, flattening her palms on his shoulders blades. “You were gone. And I missed you.”

 

“Missed you too,” he mumbles, reaching back until his hand bumps into her hip. 

 

“I know we don’t talk about feels,” she says. “And if I was gonna stand here and list all the things I love about you we’d be at it for hours.”

 

“Obviously,” he says, tugging at her shirt. 

 

“So,” she says. “So instead I’m going to say that no one has ever known me as well as you do, no one has ever loved me the way that you do, as unconditionally and fully. And there aren’t words for what that means to me.”

 

His eyes burn with it, the weight of her emotion, the press of her hands against him. 

 

“Margo,” he says and his voice breaks. 

 

“Oh no, uh uh, don’t get gross on me,” she says but he can hear the waver in her voice, the knot in her throat. 

 

“I love you,” he says, no lilt to it, no mask to hide the truth of it. 

 

“Good,” she says, patting his back. “I’m gonna go be somewhere else.”

 

His stomach drops out at the thought of being alone, at the thought of doing what they used to do, going off to separate corners to actually feel things. 

 

He slips his fingers around her wrist. 

 

“Don’t,” he says. And, “Stay.” 

 

And he tugs Margo to the bed, sprawling across the duvet and pulling her into his chest. And he feels unbelievably brave, pressing his face into her hair.

  
  
  


 

He wasn’t ready for Fen. 

 

She barrels into him at full speed and for a second he is consumed with the impossible task of keeping them both upright. Her forehead presses itself into his shoulder, her arms circle the space under his armpits and squeezes, not too tight like Margo and not nearly as desperate as Quentin. 

 

He doesn’t have to think about holding her back, letting his arms settle around her. He tips his head down and breathes her in, that fresh earthy Fen smell, like flowers and springtime. He buries his hand in her princess curls, careful not to disrupt the crown, presses the other one in between her shoulders, drawing her in closer and closer. 

 

She’s making very Fen-like noises, happy little cooing sounds high in her throat, and she pats at his back and his sides like she needs that physical proof of him and his wholeness. 

 

(He hasn’t had many blessings to count but there’s a part of him, that part that is sometimes strangely overcome with the need to protect her, the part that’s convinced she’s as much a Disney princess as she looks, that rushes into a high at the absolute relief that she never saw the Monster.)

 

He tugs her in tighter, presses his mouth to her forehead and holds onto her. Over the top of her head, the rest of their motley crew stares. 

 

“Who’s that?” Kady asks, in a hushed whisper. 

 

“Eliot’s wife,” Alice says. 

 

“What?”

 

And yet. 

 

Fen’s arms loop around his neck and she pushes up onto her toes. Their foreheads bump and she presses into him, smiling now, laughing now in short crazed giggles. Her eyes are full of it, the giddy relief and disbelief. And he can’t help the rush of fondness that eats him alive. 

 

“Love you,” he says and she smiles like she knows exactly what he means, like she forgives him for every way he’s failed her in the past, like a recognition of the fact that they were thrown together by chaotic chance and managed to make the best out of it anyway. 

 

He presses a kiss to the tip of her nose and she settles, leaning back to look at him. 

 

He lets go of her and she flutters away from him and back to the sidelines of the action. He turns back into it, always another quest, and to the two other people he loves more than life and the rest of the people he tolerates. 

  
  
  


 

He can’t sleep any better here in Fillory than he could back in New York. His brain feels too wired and he’s worried that if he closes his eyes for more than a second he’ll lose the feeble grasp he has on this reality. 

 

He ends up pacing in his room for a while but then he starts to feel crazy and too Quentin-esque. 

 

So he leaves his room and starts stalking the halls, humming a little song, bouncing on his toes to keep himself awake. He missed Whitespire, his home away from home, except he never really did have a first home. Just the Physical Kids Cottage, a single bedroom and that couch.

 

He wonders if Margo’s up and then recalls the exact look she gave Josh when they got back. 

 

He has questions but more importantly a genuine fear of seeing more than he should. 

 

So no Margo. 

 

Around fifteen minutes later he passes Quentin. 

 

“Hey,” Quentin says, feet stumbling a little, eyes tripping over Eliot with something like relief and joy. He looks dazed and tired and like he isn’t sure exactly where he is or where he came from or where he was even trying to go. 

 

“Can’t sleep?” he asks when he wants to say  _ I love you, come share a bed with me.  _

 

Quentin shrugs. “Got a, uh, craving for a midnight snack.”

 

And that’s low hanging fruit and his mouth opens to jump right on it, but… he needs to be different. He needs to not cover up ever feeling in joke and innuendo. 

 

“Well I hope you were careful. Josh is shit at labeling his actual baked goods from his get you baked goods,” he says. 

 

Quentin smiles, politely, and he looks tired.

 

“Yeah, I was too scared to actually eat anything once I got down to the kitchen,” he says.

 

“Poor baby,” he says, reaching out to pat Quentin's arm. “I’ll force Josh to make you some real food in the morning. I’ll supervise him myself.”

 

Quentin smiles again, a soft hurting little thing. 

 

“Goodnight, El,” he says, brushing past to head for his bedroom. 

 

“Q,” he says and it gets caught up in his throat, his voice cracking over it like a desperate plea. 

 

“Yeah? Are you-?” Quentin turns back, eyes wide with concern. 

 

“I’d choose you,” Eliot says. “Any time.”

 

“What?”

 

“That’s what you thought, right?” Eliot asks, stepping towards him with shaky knees. “After… I said those things about us, that’s what you thought, that I said that with a choice we wouldn’t… I wouldn’t pick you.”

 

“Eliot,” he says, like it hurts. 

 

“But I would, any and every time and place, no matter the other options,” he says. He shifts from foot to foot. “So… Goodnight.” He steps away from Quentin, bending his knees like he might have to sprint from the hall.

 

“What did you mean then?”

 

He looks back at Quentin. 

 

“Hmmm?” he says. His heart is hammering against the inside of his chest. 

 

“If you didn’t mean… what did you mean then, when you said that we wouldn’t… that we couldn’t…”

 

“I meant… a lot of things,” he says, tilting his head. “I meant that our life-” He waves his hand vaguely. “-in the past was so far removed from the absolute chaos every day is here and we don’t know if we work when tragedy is being constantly thrown in our face.”

 

“Eliot, I love you,” he says and it just about sucks the air out of the room. 

 

“Yeah and you loved Alice,” he offers. 

 

Quentin throws his head back and sighs. “Just because I loved Alice doesn’t mean I can’t-”

 

“No, I know,” he says quickly. “I know it doesn’t, I just meant... You loved Alice, so much, and look what happened to you guys. You can barely even look at her. Because all the shit that’s happened tore you apart. And Q, you mean so much to me, I wouldn’t know how to live like that.”

 

Quentin’s eyes are watering just a little and he twists his hands together.

 

“But we know how to weather these things,” he mutters. “We know how to have fights, like, productively, and how to listen to each other.”

 

“When things are simple,” he says. “When it’s just you and me and a single task. When there are no other options except to make up and get back to work, when there are no complication or other people. And even then, you had Ari.”

 

“That’s only because you said it was okay!” Quentin runs his hand through his hair, tugging and grimacing. 

 

“It was okay,” he says. “It was, more than, but I’m just saying that even then, even at the simplest it’s ever been, no other choices and you still found one.”

 

“Excuse me for wanting to have an actual relationship with someone.” His face is going a little red, his jaw clenched. 

 

“I-”

 

“Stop,” he says, pacing now, back and forth in front of Eliot, not looking at him at all. “Just… you keep saying that I wouldn’t choose you, but every time I tried to, you shut me down. You said, ‘Don’t overthink it, Q.’ and we would move the fuck on. Every time! I was overflowing with how much I felt and how much I wanted you and how goddamn happy I was that even without anything else from Earth, I was allowed to keep you. And every time I tried to say it, you turned away. Every time I was desperate to know if you really loved me, if you would choose me, if you wanted me or just needed me in the absence of anyone else you would turn away. ‘Don’t overthink it, Q.’ So yeah, I got with Ari, not because I would choose her over you, but because you never let me make a choice, you never let me choose you or even let me plead with you to choose me.”

 

And Quentin collapses like his strings have been cut, leaning back against the stonewall of the hallway, burying his face in his hands. His arms are shaking. 

 

“I would choose you,” Eliot says, before the silence consumes them. “I don’t… You know that.”

 

“How? How am I supposed to know that? Because one second you’re kissing me like the world is ending and the next you won’t even let me hold your hand?” The words are muffled by his hand, yet they cut right through the air and through Eliot. “Because we spent forty years together, fooling around any time we could when Teddy was away, but you never once let us put a label on anything.”

 

“Labels are overdone,” he whispers. 

 

“I tried to give you my wedding ring, Eliot,” he says, swiping his hands across his face. “And you threw it away.”

 

“It was symbolic,” Eliot says. “You were moving on from Ari, you were letting her go.”

 

“I was proposing to you!” 

 

“No, you were not.” 

 

Quentin squeezes his eyes shut. 

 

“I gave you my ring,” he says quietly, voice breaking. 

 

“You said, ‘Here, I don’t think I need it anymore. I want you to have it’”

 

“Yeah because if I actually said anything serious about how I felt, you would have turned it into a joke,” he protests. 

 

“Well… maybe.”

 

“So I gave you my ring and you said, ‘Cool.’ And buried it out in the garden,” he says. 

 

“It was symbolic.” He’s spluttering. He feels frayed along the edges. “If you… I would have said yes.”

 

“Would you have?” He asks, looking miserable and small. 

 

“Yes!”

 

“Because we came back and we somehow remembered all of that and I put myself out there, I asked you, and you said no,” he says. 

 

“I was trying to be practical,” he says quickly, too fast, too defensive. 

 

“Right,” Q says, turning away, stepping away. 

 

“I was scared,” he says, grabbing onto Quentin’s hand. “I’m still scared. Of the million and one ways this can go wrong. Of ending up like Alice, or of you finding another Arielle. Of you finding out that I’m not what you want, that whatever label we put on this I won’t live up to. Of losing you Q. I can’t-”

 

“Eliot,” he breathes. “Fifty years, El. I love you.”

 

“Of course you do,” he says and shakes his head. “I love you, too.”

 

“I’m in love with you, I’m choosing you. Let me choose you,” he says, stepping in, closer, their chests brushing together, their noses almost bumping, breathing the same air. “Please.”

 

He nods, just barely, amazed he even has to ability to move at this point. 

 

Their lips are brushing. 

 

“Help me,” he whispers and Quentin shivers at the words against his mouth. “I need you to help me be brave.”

 

He can barely breathe as Quentin closes his eyes, kisses him in earnest, catching his lower lip in his mouth. 

 

“I need you,” Eliot breathes into him. “I want you.” Quentin’s hands find the small of his back, pull him in closer. “I choose you.” And he kisses Quentin, slowly and gently and tenderly. “I’m in love with you.” And Quentin whimpers, right against his mouth, the sound vibrating in the space between them. 

 

He reaches up, cupping Quentin’s cheek in his hand, brushing his thumb along the top of his ear. 

 

“We work,” Quentin says on an exhale, eyes lidded and dazed. It sounds like a question, helpless and pleading. 

 

“We work,” he says. “Or… we’ll figure out how to make us work.”

  
  
  


 

He and Quentin are in bed and that’s a trip. 

 

He remembers this well. Just laying next to each other and kissing and kissing, pressing their mouths together again and again, sometimes deep and languid, tongues and teeth but slow, every move against each other intentionally, sometimes light and soft, just a brush of their lips, just to feel each other there, letting their eyes flutter shut, let Quentin whisper any and every random thought into the air between them, against his mouth. 

 

Quentin loved kissing. He remembers that. Loves kissing so much, it’s sometimes all he wants, to just stay like this until sleep drapes over them. 

 

Eliot is kinda done with not giving Quentin what he wants. 

 

There’s a knock on the door. 

 

Quentin jumps away, nearly knocking himself off the bed. Probably muscle memory from all their years trying to sneak in adult times when Teddy was distracted. 

 

Eliot clears his throat and props himself up on his elbows. 

 

“Entre vous.”

 

Quentin fidgets, halfway between sitting up, his legs doing something that must be uncomfortable. 

 

The door creaks open and Fen peeks her head in. She wears that crown responsibly, like she’s bearing a weight with it but has it under control. 

 

He smiles at her and it’s such a weird feeling because he should’ve, would’ve been annoyed, would’ve been groaning and rolling his eyes and snarking out some joke about privacy or ill placed comment about infidelity. He’s oddly appreciative now of the little things he just took for granted, which is almost too cliche for his sensibilities. 

 

“Hi,” she says, eyes squinting as she smiles. 

 

“Hey,” he says, grinning back. “What’s up?”

 

“Oh, nothing,” she said, waving her hand around. “Just wanted to check in. See how you were doing.”

 

There are a lot of witty things he could say about how and what and who he was doing at the moment. 

 

He reaches his hand out for her instead. 

 

She raises her eyebrows and tilts her head a little. He opens and closes his hand a few times in little grabby motions. 

 

She stumbles over slowly, waves at Quentin awkwardly. 

 

“Hey Fen,” he says, waving back just as awkwardly. God, his two beautiful little hot messes. 

 

She puts her hand in his and raises her eyebrows. He weaves their fingers together, swings their hands back and forth. 

 

“Stay,” he says. Except…

 

He glances over at Quentin, raising his eyebrows in question. Quentin shrugs. 

 

“It’s your bed,” he says, the corner of his mouth quirking up. 

 

He tugs gently on Fen’s hand, guiding her onto the bed, pulling at the blankets so she can settle beneath them. 

 

He lays back down and wraps his free arm around Quentin’s shoulders, pulling him in tight. 

 

And this. This is it. He would say he missed this but he never even had this in the first place, has always been so scared of this for some reason, couldn’t even imagine it until all he had was his mind and time. 

 

And now this is real and warm. His hand in Fen’s, her nose against his arm. Quentin on his other side, head on his chest, hair in his nose, hands on his hips, mouth on his skin. 

 

His wife on one side, the love of his life on the other. 

 

He wants Margo, violently. There’s a space for her right above him, sitting against the headboard with her legs crossed, running her tiny warm fingers through his hair and maybe Q’s and maybe Fen’s. Completely surrounded, bordered on all sides, wife, love, soulmate. 

 

He decides to see if he’s telepathic, calling for her as loud as he can with the voice in his head. 

 

It doesn’t work. 

 

But Penny, one of them, pops in with a murderous look. 

 

“Jesus!” he says. “Could you keep it down? I don’t want to know-”

 

“Call Margo please,” he says, brushing his hand over Quentin’s hair. 

 

If Penny kills him, he’ll go out happy and warm which is better than he ever expected. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Anyway I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!! Feedback is greatly appreciated!


End file.
